A morgue assistant who lured medical students to his workplace has been arrested for the murder, rape and mutilation of at least 16 young women in Yemen, a police officer said Sunday, quoted by the Associated Press.

The agency said the suspect, a Sudanese man employed at Sanaa University, was arrested Friday and has confessed to raping and killing five women and mutilating their bodies, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The suspect, who helped in autopsies, would lure students to the morgue with promises of helping them in their studies, said a university official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said the man would cut off the hands and feet of his victims, dissolve them in chemicals and keep the bones as mementos.

Among the five victims that the suspect has admitted killing are a Yemeni woman and an Iraqi student whose mutilated bodies were found Wednesday in a room near the university morgue, the police officer said.

He said the Iraqi medical student disappeared in December.

The case has caused an uproar in conservative Yemen, with newspapers condemning the university for hiring the man and criticizing police for not arresting him earlier in his two-year killing spree, said AP – Albawaba.com